Between You and Me

by Sir Harry Lauder

There's a great strain aboot constant travelling, too. There will aye be accidents. No serious ones, maist of them, but trying tae the nerves and disturbing tae the rest. And there's aye some worry aboot being late. Unless you've done such work as mine, you canna know how I dread missing a performance. I've the thought of all the folk turning oot, and having them disappointed. There's a sense of responsibility one feels toward those who come oot sae to hear one sing. One owes them every care and thought.

Sae it's the nervous strain as much as the actual weariness of travel that I'm thinking of. It's a relief, on a long tour, tae come to a city where one's booked for a week. I'm no ower fond of hotels, but there's comfort in them at such times. But still, that's another thing. I miss my hame as every man should when he's awa frae it. It's hard work to keep comfortable and happy when I'm on tour so much.

Oh, aye, I can hear what you're saying to yourself! You're saying I've talked sae much about hoo fond I am of travelling. You'll be thinking, maybe, you'd be glad of the chance to gae all around the world, travelling in comfort and luxury. Aye, and so am I. It's just that I want you to understand that it's all wear and tear. It all takes it out of me.

But that's no what I'm meaning when I talk of the work I do. I'm thinking of the wee songs themselves, and the singing of them. Hoo do you think I get the songs I sing? Do you think they're just written richt off? Weel, it's not so.

A song, for me, you'll ken, is muckle mair than just a few words and a melody. It must ha' business. The way I'll dress, the things I do, the way I'll talk between verses—it's all one. A song, if folks are going to like it, has to be thought out wi' the greatest care.

I keep a great scrapbook, and it gaes wi' me everywhere I go. In it I put doon everything that occurs tae me that may help to make a new song, or that will make an old one go better. I'll see a queer yin in the street, maybe. He'll do something wi' his hands, or he'll stand in a peculiar fashion that makes me laugh. Or it'll be something funny aboot his claes.

It'll be in Scotland, maist often, of course, that I'll come upon something of the sort, but it's no always there. I've picked up business for my songs everywhere I've ever been. My scrap book is almost full now—my second one, I mean. And I suppose that there must be ideas buried in it that are better by far than any I've used, for I must confess that I can't always read the notes I've jotted down. I dash down a line or two, often, and they must seem to me to be important at the time, or I'd no be doing it. But later, when I'm browsing wi' the old scrapbook, blessed if I can make head or tail of them! And when I can't no one else can; Mrs. Lauder has tried, often enough, and laughed at me for a salt yin while she did it.

But often and often I've found a treasure that I'd forgotten a' aboot in the old book. I mind once I saw this entry——

"Think about a song called the 'Last of the Sandies'."

I had to stop and think a minute, and then I remembered that I'd seen the bill of a play, while I was walking aboot in London, that was called "The Last of the Dandies." That suggested the title for a song, and while I sat and remembered I began to think of a few words that would fit the idea.